List of sign languages
There are perhaps two hundred sign languages in use around the world today. The number is not known with any confidence; new sign languages emerge frequently through creolization and de novo (and occasionally through language planning). In some countries, such as Sri Lanka and Tanzania, each school for the deaf may have a separate language, known only to its students and sometimes denied by the school; on the other hand, countries may share sign languages, though sometimes under different names (Croatian and Serbian, Indian and Pakistani). Deaf sign languages also arise outside of educational institutions, especially in village communities with high levels of congenital deafness, but there are significant sign languages developed for the hearing as well, such as the speech-taboo languages used in aboriginal Australia. Scholars are doing field surveys to identify the world's sign languages.Woodward, James. 1991. The relationship of sign language varieties in India, Pakistan, and Nepal. Sign Language Studies 78: 15-22.Parkhurst, Stephen and Dianne Parkhurst. 1998. Introduction to Sign Language survey. Notes on Sociolinguistics 3: 215-42.Ciupek-Reed, Julia. 2012. Participatory methods in sociolinguistic sign language survey: A case study in El Salvador. University of North Dakota MA thesis. Ciupek-Reed's thesisRussell R. Aldersson and Lisa J. McEntee-Atalianis. 2007. A Lexical Comparison of Icelandic Sign Language and Danish Sign Language. Birkbeck Studies in Applied Linguistics 2 Icelandic & Danish Sign Languages The following list is grouped into three sections: *'Deaf sign languages', which are the preferred languages of Deaf communities around the world; these include village sign languages, shared with the hearing community, and Deaf-community sign languages *'Auxiliary sign languages', which are not native languages, but are signed language systems of varying complexity, used in addition to oral languages. Simple gestures are not included, as they do not constitute language. *'Signed modes of oral languages', also known as manually coded languages, which are bridges between sign and oral languages The list of deaf sign languages is sorted regionally and alphabetically, and such groupings should not be taken to imply any genetic relationships between these languages (see List of language families).For a classification, see Wittmann, Henri (1991). "Classification linguistique des langues signées non vocalement." Revue québécoise de linguistique théorique et appliquée 10:1.215-88.PDF Sign Language List Deaf sign languages - Contemporary Africa There are at least 25 sign languages in Africa, according to researcher Nobutaka Kamei.Kamei, Nobutaka. The Birth of Langue des Signes Franco-Africaine: Creole ASL in West and Central French-speaking Africa, paper presented at Languages and Education in Africa (LEA), University of Oslo, June 19–22, 2006. Article online (PDF)Kamei, Nobutaka (2004). The Sign Languages of Africa, "Journal of African Studies" (Japan Association for African Studies) Vol.64, March, 2004. Kamei lists 23 African sign languages in this article. Some have distributions that are completely independent of those of African oral languages. At least 13 foreign sign languages, mainly from Europe and America, have been introduced to at least 27 African nations; some of the 23 sign languages documented by Kamei have originated with or been influenced by them. America Asia/Pacific }" (JSL) |- | Jhankot Sign Language || village || (Nepal) |- | Jumla Sign Language || village || (Nepal) |- | Kata Kolok || village || ( Bali Sign Language, Benkala Sign Language) |- | Laotian Sign Language || || (related to Vietnamese languages; may be more than one SL) |- | Korean Sign Language || Japanese || "한국수어 (or 한국수화)" / "Hanguk Soo-hwa" |- | Macau Sign Language || || "澳門手語" |- | Malaysian Sign Language || ASL || "Bahasa Isyarat Malaysia" (BIM) |- | Mongolian Sign Language || ? || |- | Na Sai Sign Language || village || (Thailand) data |- | Naga Sign Language || village? || (India) last reported in 1921 |- | Nepali Sign Language || Indian || Indigenous sign language with inputs from Indian Sign Language, American Sign Language, International Sign, and others |- | New Zealand Sign Language || British || (NZSL) |- | Old Bangkok Sign Language || local (or village?) || |- | Old Chiangmai Sign Language || local (or village?) || |- | Penang Sign Language || local || (Malaysia) |- | Rennellese Sign Language || village || (Solomon Islands) |- | Samoan Sign Language || || http://books.google.com/books?id=7q4XHQAACAAJ&dq=%22Samoan+Sign+Language%22&cd=2 May mean American Samoan SL; not clear if they are related. Actual Samoa SL may descend from Australian SL.http://www.abc.net.au/australianetwork/nexus/stories/s2049605.htm |- | Selangor Sign Language || ASL? || (Malaysia) |- | Singapore Sign Language || || "新加坡手语"'' is actually just Signed Exact English. The daily language is unknown. |- | Sri Lankan sign languages || local || (14 deaf schools with different languages) |- | Taiwanese Sign Language || Japanese || 臺灣手語 / Taiwan Ziran Shouyu |- | Tibetan Sign Language || ? || |- | Thai Sign Language || ASL || (TSL) "แบบสะกดนิ้วมือไทย" (incl. Hai Yai) |- | Vietnamese sign languages || local || (Hanoi Sign Language, Ho Chi Minh Sign Language, Haiphong Sign Language; some may be related to some of the Thai languages) |- | Yogyakarta Sign Language || ? || |} Europe Middle East Deaf sign languages - Historical * Martha's Vineyard Sign Language * Old French Sign Language – possibly ancestral to the French family * Old Kent Sign Language Auxiliary sign languages * Australian Aboriginal sign languages (Warlpiri Sign Language, Yolngu Sign Language, etc) * Baby Sign – using signs to assist early language development in young children. * Baseball Sign – a method used in baseball and softball to communicate strategic plays without the opponent knowing * Contact Sign – a pidgin or contact language between an oral language and a sign language, e.g. Pidgin Sign English (PSE). * Curwin Hand Signs – a technique which allows musical notes to be communicated through hand signs. * International Sign (previously known as Gestuno) – an auxiliary language used by deaf people in international settings. * Makaton – a system of signed communication used by and with people who have speech, language or learning difficulties. * Military hand and arm signals – a standardised system of communicating commands and information silently. * Monastic sign language * Mudra – word-like gestures and poses uses in Hindu and Buddhist dance drama and religious iconography * Plains Indian Sign Language * Plateau Sign Language * Tic tac – a traditional British system of communicating betting odds at racecourses. Signed modes of oral languages :For a more extensive list see Manually Coded Language. This page lists only those MCLs with pages on Wikipedia. * General ** Cued Speech – a hand/mouth system (HMS) to render oral language phonemes visually intelligible. ** Fingerspelling – alphabetic signs to represent the written form of an oral language. * English ** Manually Coded English ** Signing Exact English (SEE2) *Malay ** Bahasa Malaysia Kod Tangan (BMKT) *Speech-taboo languages ** Caucasian Sign Language ** Warlpiri Sign Language ** Yolŋu Sign Language Genetic classification of sign languages Languages are assigned families (implying a genetic relationships between these languages) as British, Swedish (perhaps a branch of BSL), French (with branches ASL (American), Austro-Hungarian, Danish, Italian), German, Japanese, and language isolates. See also * Contact sign * Intercultural competence * Legal recognition of sign languages * List of sign languages by number of native signers * Manual alphabet * Sign language References External links *[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=23-16 Ethnologue – Deaf sign languages] *Signes du Monde, directory for all online Sign Languages dictionaries / *Video samples of 43 sign languages (Jehovah's Witnesses' official Sign Language website) * Sign Category:Deaf education